Quarantine

DVD, Stargate Atlantis S4 (Quarantine)

Reliable series, made me feel warm all the way through. It's not that it's some radical story (no, but ends with a Radic finale!), having people trapped in little groups or pairs is just one of those standard sci-fi (and probably just about every other genre, too!), scenarios used to get to know our characters. It's a disaster film, basically, except with characters you already care about instead of ones you're expected to. I'm always saying it's the character interactions that work best and should be built around on this series, not the mythology, the hardware or the science fiction, and so what could be better than trapping people in rooms and seeing what they do! We have McKay in the botany area with his girlfriend, Katie, whom he'd gone down to propose to; there's Ronon secured in the infirmary with Dr. Keller; Carter's trapped in a lift with Zelenka; and Sheppard's in some lab with Teyla. At first, as you'd expect, they're wondering what's going on, it's a lockdown, a virus outbreak, it won't be long before someone else does something about it - they all assume Rodney will solve the problem, which shows how much faith they have in his well-tested abilities, but he doesn't have a computer. That's the rule with this kind of story, you have mismatched people and everyone has to do something uncomfortable, and in the meantime the situation escalates…

It's classic, it's not about action, it's pure character interaction. So Rodney, sadly comes to believe he needs to improve himself before he commits to marriage instead of plunging in as he'd planned, Ronon and Keller have a meeting of minds, he helping her realise she's found a place to fit in here, Sheppard, being the man of action, decides to do something, and in the end it's Zelenka that has to solve the problem. I'd have thought Carter would have been a better fit in the tight air ducts that have to be crawled through to get to the power room in time to shut down the self-destruct - surely it should only be able to be shut down via security codes or it wouldn't be terribly effective? And what's with Major Lorne carrying around a chunk of C4 in his pocket - does he chew it like tobacco or is it that he never goes on duty without it! (Probably sleeps with one under his pillow, too!). Also, how come Sheppard and Lorne can pull the doors of Carter and Zelenka's stuck lift open from the outside, but they couldn't do it from the inside? Other than these few questions this was an enjoyable experience from beginning to, well, just about the end - it's a bit sad that Rodney backpedals as it would have been interesting to see him become a husband and how that would affect his current role, but for whatever reason, perhaps having time to think it over again, gave him enough pause to pause on the plan, perhaps permanently.

What did I love, though? Having disparate couples together and seeing what they have to say - when do Carter and Zelenka ever have scenes together? Or Ronon and Keller? McKay is probably too often the magic solution that can solve all, as long as he has time to bicker and look worried, finally exploding in self-aggrandisement, but this time he doesn't have his computer, or any computer, indeed, and of course he immediately starts to become hypochondriacal. Carter is a whizz herself so of course she could come up with a plan to get them out of the tiny lift except Radic manages to mess it up. The only surprise there was that she didn't cite some previous example of when she'd been trapped in similar situations as part of SG-1, but I was actually glad she didn't because you can't have her do that every single time, or it gets old. Sometimes, sure, but use the reminiscences sparingly, so well done for resisting the temptation here because I'm sure there have been plenty of times in the ten seasons she was in previous 'Stargate' that could have been mentioned!

I also loved seeing people take responsibility and choose a difficult or dangerous course of action because they had no way of knowing what anyone else was doing - Sheppard leads the way in that fabulous Jason Bourne-like climb up the outside of the main tower of Atlantis, complete with sweeping shots that make it look very real. But that's not to diminish the brave tasks taken on by Keller when she goes along with Ronon's idea to score an oxygen tank so they can knock another one into it and blast the door open (which only succeeds in wrecking the infirmary!), or Zelenka's crawl through the air ducts: dark, claustrophobic, and with the pressure all on him that the self-destruct could go off at any moment. It was a terrific scenario, very well played, and even the idea of what are the rest of the inhabitants of the city doing during this crisis, is shown by the control room doing whatever they can to help, even if it isn't much. It gives the world more reality instead of having us believe everything revolves around five or six people. It is a bottle episode, it isn't full of effects work or intricately choreographed fight scenes, but it is one of the best this season, with everyone having a meaningful moment (Teyla voices her doubts that she should go back to work and risk herself once she becomes a Mother, for example). It's the kind of episode you wouldn't see in TV any more because it doesn't 'go' anywhere, but in reality these kinds of personal stories are far more engaging. There's a reason people still go to the theatre where there are minimal special effects. The personal is just as important, if not more.

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